← UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast
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- [00:01]
James Buddy Day
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- [01:00]
Mary Murphy
there was a frenzy of fear in the air.
- [01:03]
James Buddy Day
Imagine. Imagine living in a city of 8 million people and knowing a killer is hunting at random. A first date parked in a car, a student walking home, a young couple saying good night.
- [01:17]
Mary Murphy
I personally experienced what the city was like at that time and how fearful young women and young men were going out at night.
- [01:27]
James Buddy Day
In the summer of 1977, New York became a city looking over its shoulder where every morning began with the same question. Did he strike again?
- [01:38]
Mary Murphy
We didn't have the Internet, we didn't have cell phones, and so we were listening to the radio. Oh, did someone else get shot?
- [01:46]
James Buddy Day
Between the summers of 1976 and 1977, David Berkowitz terrorized New York carrying out a series of shootings that left six people dead and wounded at least 11 others. A case that captured the city, dominated headlines, and continues to be debated. Nearly 50 years later, there are still
- [02:11]
Mary Murphy
questions being asked about David Berkowitz 50 years after the shootings started.
- [02:17]
James Buddy Day
Those questions persist largely because of Berkowitz himself. Over the decades, he's repeatedly expanded and revised his own story. Demonic dogs, satanic cults, accomplices, conspiracies, claims that transform a straightforward murder case into something much stranger. All of this leads to one central question. Did David Berkowitz act alone?
- [02:44]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
You have to look deeply into the
- [02:47]
James Buddy Day
into the Son of Sam case to answer that question. I'm speaking with a renowned forensic psychologist and a journalist who lived through the investigation in real time.
- [02:57]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
Son of Sam was an enormous story in New York. And he knew what he was doing and he wanted to be part of the story.
- [03:04]
James Buddy Day
And by the end, you'll be able to judge the evidence for yourself. Not just whether David Berkowitz acted alone, but whether the stories he told afterwards were ever meant to reveal the truth at all. I'm James Buddy Day. This is unmarked. The Son of Sam case is one of those stories that has evolved over the years. What was once understood as a lone gunman has gradually transformed into something much larger. A sprawling conspiracy involving satanic cults, accomplices and hidden networks operating in the shadows. But conspiracy is where we lose sight of the nuance, the human stories that are at the center of these cases. That's what I'm interested in. I want to go deep past the mythology. But before we get too deep, let me catch you up. On May 8, 1978, David Berkowitz pled guilty to six counts of of second degree murder, bringing an end to the reign of terror of a serial killer known as the Son of Sam. Between July 1976 and July 1977, Berkowitz carried out a series of shootings across New York city that left six people dead and wounded at least 11 others. After a massive year long manhunt, Berkowitz was arrested on August 10, 1977 outside his apartment building in Yonkers, where he immediately confessed to the shootings.
- [04:46]
Mary Murphy
The crimes basically changed the quality of life in the city for at least a year. I mean, nightclubs were affected, bars, people were afraid to go out. You know, you kind of lost a little bit of your youth. You know, you couldn't enjoy yourself with freedom as a young person.
- [05:06]
James Buddy Day
That's Mary Murphy, an investigative journalist from Queens, New York. During her award winning television career with PIX11 News and CBS 2, Murphy earned 33 Emmy Awards for her reporting, most recently in 2024. What interests me most is that Murphy didn't just cover the case. She eventually sat across from David Berkowitz
- [05:30]
Mary Murphy
himself on the 10th anniversary of David. The arrest of David Berkowitz. That was in 1987. I was working at CBS, Channel 2 in New York and I did actually drive to the prison where he was at that time. And he came into the cafeteria room where visits took place and I sat across the table from him.
- [05:52]
James Buddy Day
When Murphy met Berkowitz, she didn't encounter the monster who had haunted New York's headlines. She encountered something far more unsettling. A man.
- [06:03]
Mary Murphy
He seemed to be a very mild mannered person, you know, almost gentle. You know, he had those blue eyes that were very intense, you know, chubby kind of guy. So, you know, he was not someone who was intimidating to sit across from.
- [06:19]
James Buddy Day
That observation is what keeps pulling me back into this case. What is actually happening inside the man sitting across from Mary Murphy? If you've followed the Son of Sam story in recent years, you've seen the mythology that has grown around it. The documentaries, the theories, the allegations of satanic cults and accomplices, the suggestion that Berkowitz was merely one member of something much larger. Is there anything to these claims? Or are they just stories from a narcissistic serial killer who understands that as long as people are asking questions, they're still talking about him? As I began digging through police reports, interviews, court records, and Berkowitz's own statements, I found that beneath the mythology, Berkowitz continually points back to the same explanation. And it begins with a childhood marked by rejection, abandonment, and secrets. But how much of his story is true? And how much of it is another chapter in the legend that David Berkowitz has has spent nearly 50 years writing about himself? To answer that, we have to dig deep, look at the case as a whole. And to do that, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. And now, a word from our sponsors. As the podcast grows, we're making friends. And some of those friends are advertisers, which allows us to do more research, make more, more content for you. So please meet our new friend, Brick House Nutrition. Everybody's talking about weight loss injections because the results are so dramatic. They work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. So what if you're looking to lose weight but not interested in painful weekly injections, Especially when you hear about some of those intense side effects? That's why doctors created a weight loss supplement called Lean. And the results are remarkable. The studied ingredients in Lean have been shown to lower blood sugar, burn fat by converting it into energy, and curb your appetites and cravings so you're just not as hungry. But listen, lean is not for the casual dieter with only a few pounds to lose. The doctors at Brickhouse Nutrition created Lean for frustrated dieters with 10 or more pounds to lose. So, friends, let's get you started with 20% off and free rush shipping so you can add Lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan.
- [08:49]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
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- [08:50]
James Buddy Day
Visit takelean.com and enter unmarked for your discount. That's promo code unmarked@takelean.com and now back to the record. 1950s New York State, the Second World War is over. Families are moving to the suburbs. Men are expected to provide and keep their emotions to themselves. Women are expected to marry and maintain the home. Divorce carries a stigma. Mental illness is rarely discussed and family problems stay behind closed doors.
- [09:34]
Mary Murphy
New York City was in the middle of a fiscal crisis. There were police layoffs. Crime was going up. It wasn't the greatest time in New York.
- [09:44]
James Buddy Day
This is the world that David Berkowitz is born into. Events he'll spend much of his life returning to, fixating on and blaming for the violence he eventually commits. But what's true? That's another question. Because over the years Berkowitz has mythologized his own story. So here's what we know. After his arrest in 1977, reporters from the New York Post broke into Berkowitz's apartment, stole and published his adoption records. David Berkowitz isn't born David Berkowitz. His birth name is Richard David Falco. June 1, 1953. The son of Betty and Tony Falco. According to contemporaneous reporting, he's the product of a long running affair between Betty Falco and another man, Joseph Kleinman. The pregnancy contributes to the breakdown of Betty's marriage and she gives the child up for adoption. At 17 months old, Richard David Falco is adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz. His name becomes David Richard Berkowitz, though throughout childhood he's simply known as Dave.
- [11:00]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
He was adopted by a fairly normal family that tried to give him as much as they possibly could. It wasn't a deviant family by any means.
- [11:09]
James Buddy Day
That's Dr. Louis Schlesinger, professor of Psychology at John Jay College of criminal justice. Dr. Schlesinger has spent years studying serial and sexual homicide. He's worked alongside the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit and has studied the Berkowitz case extensively.
- [11:28]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
Adoption does not predispose to criminal behavior, violent behavior, and certainly not serial killer. Did it bother him? Oh, I don't know. Possibly. But that's not a reason. In his mind, it may be a reason to try to mitigate it himself.
- [11:44]
James Buddy Day
What Dr. Schlesinger is talking about here is important. Not the adoption itself. It's the story Berkowitz eventually tells himself about the adoption. Because those are very different things. And how that story develops is crucial. For years it's been widely reported that Berkowitz learned he was adopted at the age of 13. And when I started digging through contemporary reporting, I found numerous sources that support that timeline. But I also came across an article in the Pace Law Review in which Berkowitz himself says he learned about the adoption much earlier, around age 5. According to Berkowitz, this is when his parents, acting on the advice of a psychologist, told him that his biological mother had died during childbirth and that his biological father had been unable to care for him. What matters in this second account is that Berkowitz claims he was seeing a psychologist before he learned he was adopted.
- [12:47]
Mary Murphy
As his problems started developing, he would do things like, you know, tearing up his adoptive mother's clothing, stealing money. He started setting fires. You know, there were problems that were manifesting themselves.
- [13:01]
James Buddy Day
This underlines the point. David Berkowitz's behavioral problems don't suddenly emerge after he discovers he's adopted. They're already there. Picture a child who increasingly believes he's different from everyone around him. A child who craves recognition, who struggles when attention is directed elsewhere, who feels slighted easily and reacts intensely to rejection or embarrassment. What we're seeing here are the roots of pathological narcissism. Case in point. Some accounts claim that Berkowitz poisoned his adoptive mother's parakeet because he was jealous of the attention she gave to the bird, though I've been unable to independently verify that claim through primary sources. Still, the broader patterns in Berkowitz's childhood are difficult to ignore.
- [13:57]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
If you look at Berkowitz's background, he set 1,488 fires before he killed anybody. How do we know? Well, he had a diary where he documented all those fires where someone sets of fire. That many people, particularly pyromaniacs, you know, do it for sexual reasons. That you get a tremendous amount of control and domination over just a match.
- [14:23]
James Buddy Day
Researchers who study compulsive fire setting often find that the fire itself is not the point. The point is the feeling it creates. The realization that with a single match, you can force the world to react. And reading through Berkowitz's history, that's the theme I keep coming back to. Not adoption, not abandonment, control and recognition, the need to matter. And it's that personality structure that helps explain the mythology that Berkowitz later builds around his childhood. Everything becomes part of his personal narrative. The stories he tells himself are about his adoption become more important than the reality.
- [15:07]
Mary Murphy
He thought maybe he had killed his mother, his biological mother, because he thought she died in childbirth. It turned out that wasn't true. His mother was very much alive.
- [15:20]
James Buddy Day
By adolescence, Berkowitz has few friends. He's awkward and self conscious in Social situations. He overreacts to criticism, holds grudges. He's a young man who experiences rejection and embarrassment as deeply personal wounds. School records describe a teenager who struggles socially and emotionally. And in 1967 he experiences a genuine childhood trauma. His adoptive mother, Pearl Berkowitz dies after a long battle with cancer. The death is devastates Berkowitz's family, but it's his reaction to this trauma that provides a window into his mind after his arrest. Berkowitz later tells a psychiatrist that after his adoptive mother's death, he felt abandoned by her. Now any 14 year old losing a parent would be devastated. But what's striking is the way Berkowitz repeatedly interprets painful events through the lens of what has been done to him. Even when faced with his mother dying from cancer, the story he tells himself centers on his own abandonment. That's the pattern here. Throughout his childhood we see Dave Berkowitz continually invent stories that feed his growing sense of narcissistic entitlement.
- [16:44]
Mary Murphy
There's been a lot written about Berkowitz having emotional problems, especially around the time that his adoptive mother died. Pearl Berkowitz died when he was 14 years old of breast cancer. And then the father got involved with another woman. So Berkowitz had a stepmother at 16.
- [17:03]
James Buddy Day
Dave Berkowitz. His father and his new stepmother move into a large apartment complex in the Bronx. At this time, Dave Berkowitz has few close relationships. And because of his inward looking personality, he struggles with girls his own age. He faces continual rejection. He carries resentment towards his father and increasingly he withdraws not only into himself, but into fantasy.
- [17:35]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
His girlfriend rejected him, his mother rejected him. Berkowitz, he was adopted. All those things. Do they play a role? Of course they do. They always play a role. How much weight should be given to each one of those? It's very difficult to say. But in my view, a neurobiological component has to be there. It really has to be there. Human sexuality is hardwired. It's not something that was thrust upon you.
- [18:03]
James Buddy Day
Dr. Schlesinger sees this moment in Berkowitz's life as the developmental period in which sexually sadistic fantasies emerge. A confluence of long harbored grudges against his absent mothers, reframed through fantasy into a desire for control and domination over women.
- [18:23]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
Serial sexual murder is a deviant sexual arousal pattern. It should be considered. You talk about DSM and diagnosis. It should be considered, in my view, another paraphilia. Another paraphilia means another Abnormal sexual arousal, pedophilia, infantaphilia, fetishism and all the rest is probably, I think, the best way to understand.
- [18:50]
James Buddy Day
By this point, Berkowitz is developing the fantasies that will eventually drive the violence he commits. It's something that Mary Murphy asked him about directly. When you met him, did you ask him about his motivations?
- [19:04]
Mary Murphy
He was very cagey. He really didn't want to answer that. But he did come across as very mild mannered. You know, he had that pudgy, smiley look with the light blue eyes, crystal blue eyes. He didn't come across as intimidating. I think he was very angry. I think he was angry about the circumstances of being given up by his biological mother. I think he was angry that he lost his adoptive mother at the age of 14, who did show him a lot of love, apparently. And I think he had trouble with women.
- [19:38]
James Buddy Day
The anger is real, but I think it's more important to understand that the anger is a symptom of Berkowitz's psychology, not the cause. Many people experience abandonment, rejection, loneliness and grief, and very few become serial killers. What we're seeing in Berkowitz is a personality that encourages, increasingly interprets every disappointment as personal injury. Every rejection becomes proof he has been wronged. Every setback becomes evidence that the world has failed to recognize him. It's a growing storm of narcissism, rejection and neurological vulnerability swirling inside Berkowitz's mind.
- [20:23]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
As I always say to my colleagues and my students, this is not physics. You're never going to find. A happens, b happens, c happens. Therefore, no. These cases are very complex and we
- [20:36]
James Buddy Day
can see that pattern clearly in what comes next. In 1971, Berkowitz joins the army. He serves for three years, including a posting in Korea. He reportedly experiments with LSD drugs during this period, receives an honorable discharge, and returns to New York in 1974. At this point, Berkowitz appears adrift. Over the next three years, he moves apartments frequently, changes jobs, struggles to establish meaningful relationships. At one point, he works as a night security guard, then at a hardware store, sheet metal fabrication for Texaco. Along the way, he sorts mail at the post office. Nothing he does seems to provide the sense of power or recognition that he craves. At the same time, he begins what local newspapers later describe as a, quote, impassioned search for his biological mother. Eventually, he finds her living in Queens. And it's difficult to overstate how important this moment is. Something I spoke to Dr. Schlesinger about. Berkowitz was fixated on the idea that he was adopted. And I wonder if that's because it's almost a cognitive dissonance between his sense of importance and the reality of him being given away by his parent, by his mother, specifically.
- [22:08]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
I don't know the answer to that. I don't know what Berkowitz actually believes. Truly. I know what he said. And sometimes, people, if you say things long enough, you come to believe it yourself. You don't even know what the truth is.
- [22:22]
James Buddy Day
For years, Berkowitz has been building a fantasy around this woman. A woman who abandoned him, a woman who exists largely in his imagination. A woman who, in his mind, may hold the answers to why he has always felt different. But when that fantasy finally collides with reality, the reunion is nothing like he imagined. It's at that point that he learns something else. His biological mother has another child, a daughter, David Berkowitz's half sister, who she'd kept. For most people, that could be painful. But for Berkowitz, whose worldview increasingly revolves around around rejection, grievance, and perceived injustice, it's devastating. Now, years later, he'll claim that it's after this encounter that he became involved with individuals connected to the occult, participated in satanic rituals, and encountered forces that would shape the murders to come. But as I dug through the records, what emerged was something much less dramatic. And these conspiracies are not new. Many were proposed by Berkowitz himself after his imprisonment and furthered by questionable journalism. And looking back at the records, I can find instances where Berkowitz admits that none of this is true. In a February 23, 1979 interview with the New York Times, Berkowitz stated that the stories of demonic voices, demonic dogs, and supernatural commands were all fabricated. At the time, he admitted to reporters that he'd invented much of this narrative after his arrest. The article reports that Berkowitz said he had created the story in part to support an insanity defense and to portray himself as mentally ill rather than fully responsible for the murders back in 1974. Berkowitz spends much of his time alone. He increasingly withdraws into fantasy, fixated on his lack of recognition, which precedes a pattern of stalking behavior. Berkowitz spends countless hours driving his forward galaxy through the city, watching women following them, constructing fantasies around strangers who have no idea he's there. On Christmas Eve 1974, just weeks after meeting his biological mother and sister for the first time, Berkowitz is alone. He begins driving aimlessly through the City. And at one point, according to later investigative notes, he follows a woman leaving a supermarket. He double parks his vehicle nearby, leaps out and attacks her with a small hunting knife. Allegedly, she screams. Berkowitz panics and, and runs. And the attack is never reported. Because of this, the victim has never been conclusively identified. And the account relies entirely on Berkowitz's own retelling. But what happens next is much better documented. Shortly afterwards, Berkowitz encounters 15 year old Michelle Foreman near Baychester Avenue. He attacks her with the same knife, stabbing her. And when Foreman screams once again, Berkowitz panics and runs.
- [25:52]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
One of the hallmarks of serial sexual murder is killing up close and personal. Many people have said to me over the years when we discussed the case of David Berkowitz, well, he shot people with a gun. That's not indicative of one of the maid signs of serial murder. And that's true. But you have to look deeply into the, into the Son of Sam case. Look at the first person he tried to kill. He first tried to kill, I think it was a 14 year old girl, by stabbing her up close and personal. But it didn't work. She didn't die. He got cut and it really rattled him.
- [26:34]
James Buddy Day
Michelle Foreman survives this attack. A neighbor discovers her and she's rushed to hospital with serious injuries, including a collapsed lung. But what strikes me about the Foreman stabbing is how tentative it feels compared to the murders that follow. Berkowitz wants the outcome of the fantasy, but he doesn't yet seem capable of carrying it out face to face. He wants to dominate women. He wants to express the grievance that is being been building inside him for years. But when confronted with an actual victim, the fantasy collides with reality and that shakes him, which is the reason that firearms become so important in the story. A gun creates distance, not just physical distance from the victim, but distance from the emotional reality of what he's doing. And for Berkowitz, that distance is what finally allows the fantasy to become action. And that's why I think the Foreman attack matters so much. It's the closest we ever get to seeing the transition. The moment where fantasy first collides with reality and where David Berkowitz learns what kind of killer he's going to become. At this point, we can see the fantasy evolving. Berkowitz spends a great deal of time driving into Queens to visit his biological mother and half sister. He's searching for answers to his feelings of rejection and abandonment. But instead of bringing closure the reunion deepens his grievances. Years later, Berkowitz will tell psychiatrists that he fantasizes about committing a murder in Queens. He later tells a court ordered psychiatrist, quote, queens was special to me, very special. Shooting someone in Queens was my obsession. End quote. The fantasy isn't really about Queens. It's about what Queens represents. His biological mother is no longer an abstraction. She's a real person. His half sister is a real person. To attack them would mean confronting the reality of who they are. But stranger victims allow Berkowitz to do something else. They allow him to act out the fantasy without confronting the actual target. And this is supported in the literature. Researchers who study violent fantasy often describe a process of displacement. The grievance is directed at one person, but expressed against another. The victim becomes a stand in a symbolic target onto which anger, resentment, humiliation and rejection can be projected. In November of 1975, Berkowitz purchases a 4.44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog revolver. And contrary to the conspiracy narratives that would emerge years later, stories of secret accomplices and organized networks. We know how Berkowitz was spending his time. When investigators search his apartment after his arrest, they find the home of a deeply isolated man. The apartment is filthy. Food containers and garbage are scattered across the room. Stacks of pornography sit beside newspaper clippings about murderers and violent crime. Evidence of the weeks and days Berkowitz spends by himself, lost in fantasy.
- [30:01]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
Mental illness is not the sole cause of criminal behavior. It's almost, it's rarely the direct cause. Why do people commit crime? Generally speaking, four inclination, opportunity, expectation of reward, and expectation of impunity.
- [30:19]
James Buddy Day
Berkowitz now has all four. The fantasy, the opportunity, the weapon, and most importantly, the belief that he can get away with it. So on April 9, 1976, Berkowitz approaches a parked car in Queens.
- [30:36]
Mary Murphy
In 2024, the NYPD said the actual first shooting victim was Wendy Savino, who was shot in April of 1976. And she was sitting in a car as well.
- [30:49]
James Buddy Day
Within moments, Berkowitz fires repeatedly at 38 year old Wendy Savino, who struck multiple times. Believing her dead, Berkowitz flees the scene. But Savino survives despite devastating injuries including the loss of an eye. She manages to get help. And this attack is not considered part of the Son of Sam crimes at the time. And that's key because Wendy Savino doesn't fit the victim profile most people associate with Son of Sam. She isn't a teenager, she isn't part of a young couple. She's a 38 year old woman sitting alone in her car. Which raises the possibility that Berkowitz's fantasies are still evolving and that the pattern we recognize today had not yet fully emerged. And within three months, the violence escalates. By now, Berkowitz has become increasingly fixated on Queens. He spends a significant amount of time driving there to visit his biological mother and half sister, but remains on the outside looking in. The family he spent years searching for never becomes the family he imagined. And this is consistent with modern research into geographic profiling, which tells us that offenders often commit crimes in places that carry personal meaning. Not too close to home, not too far away, somewhere emotionally significant. On July 29, 1976, Berkowitz finds 18 year old Donna Lauria and 19 year old Jodi Valenti sitting in a car outside Lauria's apartment building in the Bronx. He circles the block, comes back and opens fire. Loria is killed. Valenti survives.
- [32:40]
Mary Murphy
I spoke to Donna Lauria's parents more than once. That was their only daughter. She was studying to be a medicine and her friend Jody was a nursing student.
- [32:51]
James Buddy Day
This is where the investigation really begins. Although it takes a lot of time for police to connect these shootings, and in Fairness, this is 1976, the idea of a lone offender stalking New York and attacking strangers at random isn't yet the framework investigators are prepared for.
- [33:10]
Mary Murphy
Ms. Deloria was really upset. He said the police were trying to look for theories like, oh, maybe it was a mob hit or maybe it was her ex boyfriend. Her ex boyfriend has talked about being targeted as a suspect for at least six months after the shooting. So the parents were really upset about, you know, how the interrogations were going on before the police were aware that there was a serial killer on the loose.
- [33:38]
James Buddy Day
On October 23, 1976, Berkowitz strikes again. 20 year old Carl Dinaro and 18 year old Rosemary Keenan are sitting inside Keenan's Volkswagen Beetle near 159th street in Flushing, Queens. Berkowitz approaches and opens fire. Keenan escapes with minor injuries from flying glass. Denaro is shot in the head, but miraculously he survives.
- [34:07]
Mary Murphy
Carl Dinero was a victim in the third shooting. He didn't even realize he had been hit until he went back to the local bar to seek some help. He was in a Volkswagen in the passenger seat and the bullet hit sort of the top of the car door or something. So if the bullet wasn't deflected, he probably would have been dead.
- [34:29]
James Buddy Day
At this point, news of the shootings and is spreading primarily through newspapers. And radio. But the city is not yet in a panic. The attacks still feel disconnected. And in speaking with Mary Murphy, she told me about her experience.
- [34:43]
Mary Murphy
I kind of heard about the second shooting in Flushing, Queens, which wasn't that far from me either. And I thought, this is scary. You know, two people were shot in Flushing.
- [34:54]
James Buddy Day
But for Berkowitz, the reality still isn't matching the fantasy. He wants domination, control, power. Yet the reality is messy. Victims survive, they scream, they run. In fact, years later, Berkowitz admits that killing people was much harder than he had imagined. That's the problem with his fantasy. The fantasy gives him complete control. Reality, it doesn't. And that's why he keeps returning to it.
- [35:26]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
Who's he attacking? He's attacking, for the most part, young couples in lovers lanes. What is this? They're happy, they're young people together, kissing and so on, you know, developing relationships. I mean, they're obviously very younger. You go and go to a lover's lane, you go home, you know, to your apartment or your home. So. And he must have been just. His life was not that at all. He must have been just terribly, terribly angry and jealous and, you know, all those sorts of horrible emotions that some people carry around with them. And he acted out in this way.
- [36:06]
James Buddy Day
By this point, Berkowitz is working at a Texaco plant as a sheet metal worker. He lives alone in a rundown Yonkers apartment. He sleeps on a mattress on the floor. His fantasy life is growing, but his real life is shrinking. Increasingly, he becomes fixated on his neighbors. He targets them with phone calls, anonymous letters. It's the same pattern we see in the murders that he commits. Control and domination at a distance. On November 27, 1976, he tries again. And once again, reality refuses to cooperate. 16 year old Donna Damasi and 18 year old Joanne Lomino have just returned from the movies. They're standing outside Lomino's home in Belrose, Queens.
- [36:54]
Mary Murphy
The third shooting was about six blocks from where I was living in Floral Park, Queens. And that involved Joanne Lomino and Donna Damasi. They had just come back from the movies and they were standing on Joanne Lemino's stoop and a man approached them and seemed to be asking for directions and then all of a sudden opened fire.
- [37:14]
James Buddy Day
Damacy survives a gunshot wound to the neck. Lemmino survives, but is permanently paralyzed. But for Berkowitz, once again, the fantasy doesn't unfold the way he imagined. And according to later admissions, he returns home despondent and sexually relives the attack. Two months later, on January 30, 1977, Berkowitz is out again. He sees 26 year old Christine Frund and her fiance, 30 year old John Deal. They're sitting in Deal's car near the Long island railroad station. After seeing a movie, Berkowitz approaches, fires three shots from his.44 caliber revolver and shatters the primary passenger side window. Christine is struck in the head. She dies several hours later in hospital. Diehl survives and manages to drive for help. A month later, on March 8, 1977, Berkowitz abandons this pattern entirely. He sees 19 year old Virginia Voskrichian walking home from school in Forest Hills Corporation, Queens. She isn't in a parked car, she isn't with her boyfriend, she's simply walking home. Berkowitz approaches her and fires.
- [38:35]
Mary Murphy
One shooting that took place outside of a car that, that I recall was the college student Virginia Voskarichian, who used her textbooks to try to cover her face. She was shot in the face. The books could do nothing to save her.
- [38:49]
James Buddy Day
The image becomes one of the defining moments of the case. A young woman using her textbooks as a shield.
- [38:57]
Mary Murphy
It was after the fifth shooting with Virginia that the nypd, the police commissioner, the mayor went public finally and said, you know, the same bullet and probably the same gun has been used in all these shootings.
- [39:14]
James Buddy Day
For the first time New York begins to understand what it's taken dealing with. The attacks are connected. There is a single offender.
- [39:23]
Mary Murphy
We didn't know about the serial killer until about March of 1977. These shootings started in July of 76. So once we found out there was a serial killer on the loose, I was extremely fearful. I had shoulder length dark hair. A lot of the victims targeted had dark hair. I was pinning my hair back in a bunch of or a ponytail. I didn't want to have my hair on my shoulders and I would run from the car. If a date dropped me off at my house, I would just literally run to the side door.
- [39:55]
James Buddy Day
This is where the story changes. Up until now, Berkowitz has been attacking individuals. Now he's attacking a city. The fantasy is no longer confined to Berkowitz's head. It's spreading through New York itself. On April 17, 1977, Berkowitz attacks once again. 18 year old Valentina Suriani and 20 year old Alexander Esso are parked on the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx. This time both victims die. And after the murders, something changes. The killings themselves are no longer in enough the fantasy needs something more, an audience. Berkowitz leaves a letter addressed to investigators near the bodies. And a little over a month later, on May 30, Berkowitz sits down and writes a letter to New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin.
- [40:54]
Mary Murphy
You could make the argument that Berkowitz was seeking attention by writing to Jimmy Breslin, the famous columnist from the Daily News. That argument could certainly be made at the time.
- [41:05]
James Buddy Day
Breslin is one of the most recognizable journalists in America, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist whose writing is read by millions of New Yorkers. And Berkowitz, he knows this.
- [41:18]
Mary Murphy
I was 17 at the time. My father, who was a New York City bus driver, was a reader of the Daily News. So he would bring home the paper. And as this case started getting more and more frenzied in terms of the fear that was setting in in the city, I would be reading the Daily News and specifically Jimmy Breslin, the columnist.
- [41:39]
James Buddy Day
Now, at first glance, Berkowitz's letters read like the ramblings of a disturbed man. There are references to demons, blood. He names himself the Son of Sam at this time. But beneath the bizarre language, something else is happening. Berkowitz isn't disturbed. He's creating a character. Up until now, the shootings have been disconnected events. A killer emerging from the darkness and disappearing back into it. The letters change everything.
- [42:12]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
Breslin said famously, Berkowitz has as much facility with a semicolon as he does with a.44 caliber gun, meaning he was very articulate, very literate. When he wrote to Jimmy Breslin, he was using semi. I mean, it wasn't like some idiot.
- [42:29]
James Buddy Day
The violence itself hasn't changed, but the fantasy has expanded. What began as private grievances, rejection, humiliation and violent daydreams has become something much larger. Berkowitz is to trying, trying to force an entire city to think about him. On June 26, 1977, 17 year old Judy Placido and her friend, 20 year old Salvatore Lupo, leave a discotheque in Bayside, Queens. They're sitting in a parked car near Northern Boulevard when Berkowitz approaches and opens fire. Placido is strong, struck in the temple, shoulder and neck, though both she and Lupo survive. Then, on July 31, 1977, Berkowitz attacks for the final time. Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante, both 20 years old, are sitting in Violante's parked car in Bath Beach, Brooklyn. It's their first date and a familiar scene. The kind of SCENE Berkowitz has been hunting for over a year. Without warning, he approaches and opens fire. Stacy Moskowitz dies several days later. Violante survives, but is nearly blinded in the attack.
- [43:52]
Mary Murphy
It was the one and only shooting that took place in Brooklyn.
- [43:58]
James Buddy Day
Now, I want to pause for a minute because Berkowitz will later claim that he didn't act alone. Years later, he'll say that there were multiple shooters, multiple vehicles, and a network of people working together. The problem is not just the complete lack of evidence to these claims. It's that his story runs directly against everything we know about David Berkowitz. Berkowitz's later claims of multiple shooters asks us to believe two contradictory things at once. The first is that he was so isolated, angry and disconnected that he became a serial killer. The second is that he was capable of maintaining a secret, disciplined conspiracy involving multiple accomplices. All the evidence we've seen thus far support the first scenario, and there is virtually nothing to validate the second. In reality, in the summer of 1977, Berkowitz's fantasy has reached its peak. For New York, the fear has become unbearable. But like so many moments in this story, what finally brings Berkowitz down isn't brilliant criminal planning or some elaborate conspiracy. It's a parking ticket.
- [45:15]
Mary Murphy
There was a woman near the scene of that shooting on July 31, 1977. She was walking her dog, and she noticed that a vehicle was parked near a fire hydrant, which is not legal. So she mentioned that to the police who were canvassing the area in Bath Beach, Brooklyn. And so the police looked up all the tickets that were issued in that area the night of the shooting, that final shooting. And they found a car, a yellow Ford Galaxy, that was registered to David Burke, Berkowitz and Yonkers.
- [45:51]
James Buddy Day
A year of murders, hundreds of detectives, thousands of leads. And in the end, the trail leads back to a yellow Ford Galaxy parked illegally beside a fire hydrant. And like the murders themselves, Berkowitz's arrest turns out to be nothing like his fantasy.
- [46:09]
Mary Murphy
When he got in the car, they surrounded the car with guns and arrested him. And they found this large cache of guns in the car with a note that he wanted to kind of go out in a blaze of glory with some mass shooting in the Hamptons.
- [46:23]
James Buddy Day
The planned mass shooting is another fantasy, another grandiose final act, another attempt to transform himself into something larger than he really is. But when officers point their guns at him, that fantasy completely evaporates. Berkowitz immediately identifies himself as The Son of Sam. Before investigators even ask, think about that. The police haven't even accused him. They haven't confronted him with the evidence. They haven't asked him a single question yet. His first instinct is to make sure they know who he is. That's how desperate he is for recognition. And inside his car, Investigators find the loaded.44 caliber charter arms Bulldog revolver beneath the driver's seat. In the back is a.45 caliber submachine gun. They also discover a note addressed to the Suffolk County Police boasting about, quote, counting bodies all summer.
- [47:30]
Mary Murphy
When he was arrested, I had just graduated from high school. I was 18 years old, and my family was from Ireland, so I had gone over to Ireland to visit relatives. About 10 days later, while still in Ireland, I saw on the TV they caught the Son of Sam, and I saw the perp walk of David Berkowitz and was extremely relieved. So I was not in the United States when he was arrested.
- [48:00]
James Buddy Day
On May 8, 1978, David Berkowitz pleads guilty to six counts of second degree murder. Before entering those pleas, he's evaluated by multiple psychiatrists, all of whom determine that he's mentally competent. At first, he rejects an insanity defense and tells the court he's guilty because he's committed the crimes. Then, almost immediately, he attempts to reverse course. During one court appearance, Berkowitz suddenly begins shouting obscenities and making bizarre statements about his victims. This is the birth of the conspiracies. And at the time, the outburst is widely interpreted as an attempt by Berkowitz to be transferred to a psychiatric institution rather than spend the rest of his life in prison. On June 12, 1978, Judge Joseph Corso sentences Berkowitz to six consecutive terms of 25 years to life imprisonment, one sentence for each murder victim. In practical terms, a life sentence. And for most people, that would have been the end of the story. But not for David Berkowitz. Over the decades, he continues giving interviews, continues to write letters letters, continues revising his account of the murders. At various times, he admits that he acted alone. At other times, he claims accomplices were involved. He speaks about satanic cults, conspiracies, always adding layers to the story.
- [49:35]
Mary Murphy
Berkowitz was engaging, but he was also cagey. He didn't want to give up too much information. When I would ask him questions, I tried to ask him if other people were involved, you know, and he has changed the story on that, you know, at times he has said there were other people that were involved in A satanic cult who were part of these crimes. And then he changed it back and said he acted alone.
- [49:58]
James Buddy Day
And that's really the point. If you've listened to this episode, you've seen the pattern. The mythology changes, the explanation changes, the story changes. But Berkowitz doesn't change. The same boy who transformed adoption into grievance. The same young man who transformed rejection into fantasy. The same killer who transformed murder into performance. He's still doing exactly what he's always done, making himself the center of the story. As of 2026, Berkowitz is 72 years old and remains incarcerated in New York. He will almost certainly die in prison.
- [50:43]
Dr. Louis Schlesinger
He's been in prison now for about 50 years. There's no evidence that he was being treated for any type of psychological or psychiatric disorder or delusional disorder, as my understanding. You mean in 50 years. None of the end. Today the mental health staff is enormous estate prison. So everybody has psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors, and all the rest. Meaning they missed it in 50 years. They there was a psychotic person there and they picked up. No, I think it was just him lying.
- [51:14]
James Buddy Day
So let's return to the questions we started with. Is David Berkowitz part of a vast satanic conspiracy? Was he a man driven by supernatural forces? Or was he something flawed, far more ordinary and far more dangerous? A lonely, angry man who spent a lifetime transforming rejection into grievance, grievance into fantasy, and fantasy into violence. A man who discovered that murder could bring him something he'd spent his entire life chasing. Attention. And if that's true, then perhaps the greatest mistake was can make is accepting David Berkowitz's version of the story. Before we wrap, a few show notes. First, you can find mary murphy@marymurphyofficial.com, her blog. She is a phenomenal journalist and I highly recommend reading. Next we're releasing this episode over Amazon prime days and my book, the grim dark fantasy A Plague of Steel is on sale now on ebook Amazon and Kobo. This thing is a labor of love. I encourage you to pick it up. Please leave me comments. I would love to hear them. If you want to support us and get access to our ad free episodes, everything is available inside unmarked case files on Patreon. This includes expanded commentary and evidence that you can examine for yourself. And if you want to see what I'm working on and thinking about for future episodes, you can follow me on Instagram amesbuddyday. I'm not hard to find. This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Nadeau and edited by Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demaray. Until next week, this is Unmarked.